I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it - Voltaire

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Tuesday, December 06, 2011

The Dirty Picture

There is
a scene in The Dirty Picture when Reshma urf Silk tells her bête noire
director Abraham that movies sell only because of three reasons - ‘Entertainment,
Entertainment and Entertainment’. It is
a dialogue that probably symbolizes what director Milan Luthria has in mind
when he creates this supposed biopic that would have unraveled the phenomenon
called ‘Silk Smitha’.

The
Dirty Picture is supposed to be India’s answer to Boogie Nights (atleast
that’s what Ekta Kapoor would like us to believe) but it limits itself to Silk's ascent. The movie invests in
entertainment – it has loads of punch lines which ensures that every minute the
audience has something to holler about and Vidya Balan has the chutzpah to
carry out the role with aplomb. But beyond the entertainment, it fails to
create an emotional connect to the character – her tragedy is a private one
(just like in real life) and it’s a pity that while the director takes interest
to show her rise to the top, he is not too keen to help us understand the
decline. It’s a bumpy fall that happens suddenly and no explanations are sought
– the audience is expected to understand that what goes up comes down one day.

The difficulty
of making a movie that speaks in one language and telling a story in another creates an identity crisis. It’s worth wondering whether the movie had to be based in Tamil Nadu
when the only thing that seemed Tamil were the posters, hoardings, costumes of
the supporting cast and junior artists while all the main characters seemed to
revel comfortably in Hindi (the way names like Muthu and Selvaganesh are pronounced
is annoying).The movie speaks in Hindi (and I don’t mean the dialogues) and
exudes the language in all references which are divorced from the realities of
what you see on the screen.

Since a
decision was made to base it in the South, the movie attempts to create the the Tamil tinsel world of the 80s. But Milan is not interested in
depicting reality; you see it is entertainment that he is after. So, what emerges is essentially Bollywood cloaked in the guise of Tamil cinema and the result is a mishmash that purely entertains. Stereotypes abound and caricatures role the roost but Silk is an exception; she sounds impeccable even in English despite her not so urbane background. Suryakanth (Naseeruddin Shah) is an aging superstar
with numerous amorous escapades who looks like a wannabe Quick Gun Murugan and
fits to the T perceptions of superstars from the south (Exactly the same issue
that I had in the buffoonish depiction of the principal in The 3 Idiots).

Since the
movie would be seen primarily by an audience not familiar with the backdrop, it
may not matter as a whole. But I’m amused when someone in the audience finds ‘Selvaganesh’
a funny name while someone else thinks that the hero is modeled on Rajinikanth
(for no apparent reason but his gun fighting scene). When you have painted all
these men as caricatures whom the audience would love to mock at, is there any
possibility of objectively analyzing Silk’s actions?

There is
no way you can root for any other character and the director is clear that Silk
and Silk alone matters in the movie, at the expense of others. When she
launches into a tirade against the hypocrisy of people in a stage function, she
is suddenly thrust into the role of an embodiment of a heroic woman who takes on the entire
industry, which sits uneasily on her. Being brash and street smart maybe, but
as a symbol of a victimized woman, it does not cut ice.

In a first
half that encapsulates the rise of a plain but ambitious Jane into
a starlet with an attitude that borders on arrogance, Vidya pulls of a casting
coup and makes us want to believe that Silk actually traversed this path as she
rode to the top. In a well-crafted scene, where the audience troops into the theatre
just for her song and leaves the hall immediately afterwards, she realizes the hold
that she could have on a sex-starved audience (this is immediately after the
star Suryakanth tells her that the crowds only care for him and she has no
relevance at all). She is gung-ho of her ability to draw audiences to the
theatre by her asset display but at the same time realizes that being an
actress is just a dream that is beyond her.

The potentially most interesting
phase could have been between Silk and the avant garde director Abraham
who detests her as somebody who represents everything that is wrong with
commercial cinema. But their interaction is fleeting and while the chemistry works
we do not know how the transformation happened? Where did the love angle come
in suddenly? Is it when Abraham realizes that his cinema never connected to the
masses (‘Mein apni hi picture dekhte so gaya') and compromises or was it just an
after- thought that emerged when the director realized that Emraan’s character was
going nowhere? It was an opportunity to explore this connect between these two persons
who worked in two different spectrums of cinema and are separated by social and
class perceptions of good and bad but sadly, this thread is left hanging.

The below-the-belt
humour is funny but I was tired by the number of over written one-liners inserted
in the plot. Why was it necessary to throw in a punch line every time a
character spoke; can’t you have people talking normally, without always wanting
to suggest something voyeuristic? Being subtle is clearly not the writer’s strength
but there is a limit – was every alternate line in the script written in Comic Sans Font Bold and Underlined 36 Size font so that the audience understands
that they are watching a Dirty Picture?

Vidya
Balan puts in a brave performance that will win her awards (breaking stereotypical roles = winning awards) but the limitations
of the script limit the scope of the performance. She learns the lessons of the trade
quickly enough and leverages her abilities to the maximum – witness the brazen
usage of her sexual power as she stalls the traffic at a journalist’s party. She’s
Erin Brockovich magnified in the first half who loses steam after some time
because she has nothing more to add; as she spirals rapidly downward (very
rapidly in the movie), we are unable to empathize with her character. The cleavage and the boobage are there for people to leer at often (thankfully without being vulgar) but the soul of the performer is missing.

Yes,
there are hints of financial problems, competition from other vamps and even
other heroines but we are unable to sense the insecurity that she feels. Why does
she torpedo a perfectly going life for no apparent reason? We do not invest in
her emotionally, especially in the second half, to connect to her demise and so
when the end comes, I’m busy looking at my watch rather nonplussed at the death.
We know her as a brash uninhibited starlet who is not prone to strategizing but we don’t know
her as a person; her fears, her turmoil, her loneliness and the things that
would help us understand better are set aside to depict only an external
manifestation of her problems.

The tragic
life of Silk Smitha needed more attention but just as her screen presence was
limited to only the fleeting lust value she gave in a movie, the movie merely
skims over her true self. While people discreetly watch scenes that border on
titillation (and we are not talking of men alone), we refuse to acknowledge it
but are quick to paint these women as loose characters who have no place in our
civilized society. Those who exhibit themselves to the audience are sluts but
we are ‘honourable’ because we enjoy these only in the darkness. Well, this movie
is about ‘entertainment’ and Silk as an entertainment object only, so the
tragedy is lost somewhere deep inside..

About Me

The word’s LAKSHYA – That’s what I am searching for in my life.I would like to take "The Road Not Taken" but remain a dreamer in words and conformist in actions. I have an opinion on most things happening around and intend to use this blog to express them.